BA stunning number out of Saudi Arabia this morning. Reuters says Houthi attacks have grounded almost nine out of ten flights at Riyadh's main airport.
BNine out of ten? That's not disruption, that's a shutdown.
BBetween October 8th and 25th, more than four thousand flights canceled at King Khalid International. Nationwide, nearly half of all Saudi departures scrapped.
BAnd the airport only partially reopened on Sunday. Then the Houthis claimed another attack the next day. They're not letting up.
BThe Saudi-led coalition says it intercepted at least ten ballistic missiles on Sunday. They keep shooting them down, but the Houthis keep firing. That's a war of attrition.
BHere's my problem: you make it sound like the defenses are working. But if 86 percent of your flights are gone, the Houthis are winning the economic war.
BI didn't say they're winning. I said this is the new normal. The investment conference got delayed, Delta postponed its Riyadh route until next year. That's real damage.
BExactly! This looks like Iran testing how far it can push without a full response. Each missile that forces a cancellation is a win for Tehran.
BBut the Houthis aren't just puppets. They have their own grievances, their own arsenal. Blaming everything on Tehran ignores a decade of Saudi bombing in Yemen.
BCome on, you know those missiles don't come from caves. Analysts point to Iran supplying the technology, the drones, the targeting. This is a direct challenge to Saudi sovereignty and to shipping in the Red Sea.
BI'm not denying Iranian involvement. I'm saying the answer can't be only Patriot batteries. You need a political track, a ceasefire in Yemen, or this never ends.
BA ceasefire with who? They've broken truces before. You need to degrade their launch capability, not negotiate with terrorists.
BAnd yet the strikes continue despite years of Saudi bombing. Maybe the military-only approach isn't working either.
BFine, but the alternative isn't appeasement. It's real air defense support and making Iran pay a price for every attack.
BThat's a big escalation. And with everything else in the region, Washington has to be careful about opening a new front.
BThe front is already open! Reports say Iran has been firing through the Houthis for months. Pretending otherwise is dangerous.
BAnd it's not just flights. Reports say at least 18 people have been killed in these attacks. Civilians.
BThat's the part that gets lost in the military chess game.
BLook, I'll give you that the Houthis are more capable than ever, and Riyadh is feeling it. But the hospital in Sanaa that got hit last week didn't come from Iran. There's blame on both sides.
BFine, the coalition has made mistakes. But right now, the flights are grounded because of Houthi missiles. That's the fact on the ground.
BAnd that fact should scare everyone who flies through the Gulf.
BAnd that's exactly why this isn't just a Yemen story. It's about the security of the entire Gulf, and by extension, global oil and air travel.
BFrom one strange bedfellow to another: the Wall Street Journal's opinion page reports Trump officials are floating Viktor Orbán as a joint U.S.-Russia-China candidate for UN Secretary-General.
BViktor Orbán? The Hungarian prime minister who's been in power for nearly two decades? Running the UN?
BThat's the idea, according to the Journal. No formal nomination, but the notion is out there. Washington, Moscow, Beijing all backing one guy.
BThat's like asking the fox to redesign the henhouse, then giving him the keys.
BI mean, Orbán at the UN would be... something. He's spent years railing against global institutions. Putting him in charge of the biggest one is either brilliant trolling or total madness.
BI'm going with madness. The UN Secretary-General is supposed to be a neutral broker. Orbán is neither neutral nor a broker.
BBut here's the thing: if the U.S., Russia, and China actually agree on a candidate, that's a signal. The Security Council's permanent members rarely align.
BThey align on wanting someone who won't challenge them. Orbán would happily preside over a weaker UN. That's the point.
BAnd maybe that's not the worst thing. The UN has been feckless on Syria, Yemen, Ukraine. A little disruption from the top might shake it up.
BDisruption, or demolition? Orbán has spent his career gutting democratic checks in Hungary. Giving him a global platform is a gift to authoritarians.
BBut he's also a realist on migration, on national sovereignty. Those are views that resonate with a lot of people, not just Moscow and Beijing.
BResonate, sure. But the UN is supposed to be above that fray. And Trump floating this, even informally, tells me he doesn't care much for the institution either.
BI think he cares less about the UN and more about the deal. If Orbán gets in, maybe he gets something in return, like a softer line on Ukraine.
BThat's a dark trade. And it's all unconfirmed, just opinion-page chatter right now.
BTrue. But worth watching. Because if it's real, it changes the entire UN game.
BMeanwhile, a post on X from Ankush Thampy claims the EU adopted tougher deportation rules this month, with a big parliamentary vote. I couldn't confirm those numbers.
BThe EU getting serious on returns? That would be a shift. They've talked about it for years but never had the teeth.
BThe claim says the regulation entered force on October 16th, with a vote of 418 to 218. If true, that's a real change in Brussels.
BAnd you can thank the migration backlash across Europe. When voters get angry, politicians suddenly remember how to deport people.
BOr they're just codifying what many member states were already doing unilaterally. The EU finally catching up.
BEither way, if it makes it easier to send back people without legal status, that's overdue. But enforcement is another matter.
BExactly. A regulation is only as good as the countries enforcing it. And in Europe, that varies widely.
BSo we'll see. But the direction is clear: Europe is done with open borders.